command me to withhold. When I first saw you, I
myself had fallen into like dissolute habits; less excusable than he,
for I had some experience of the world and its follies. When I met
YOU, and fell under the influence of your pure, simple, and healthy
life; when I saw that isolation, monotony, misunderstanding, even the
sense of superiority to one's surroundings could be lived down and
triumphed over, without vulgar distractions or pitiful ambitions; when
I learned to love you--hear me out, Miss Culpepper, I beg you--you
saved ME--I, who was nothing to you, even as I honestly believe you
will still save your brother, whom you love."

"How do you know I didn't RUIN him?" she said, turning upon him
bitterly. "How do you know that it wasn't to get rid of OUR monotony,
OUR solitude that I drove him to this vulgar distraction, this
pitiful--yes, you were right--pitiful ambition?"

"Because it isn't your real nature," he said quietly.

"My real nature," she repeated with a half savage vehemence that seemed
to be goaded from her by his very gentleness, "my real nature! What
did HE--what do YOU know of it?--My real nature!--I'll tell you what it
was," she went on passionately. "It was to be revenged on you all for
your cruelty, your heartlessness, your wickedness to me and mine in the
past. It was to pay you off for your slanders of my dead father--for
the selfishness that left me and Jim alone with his dead body on the
Marsh. That was what sent me to Logport--to get even with you--to--to
fool and flaunt you! There, you have it now! And now that God has
punished me for it by crushing my brother--you--you expect me to let
you crush ME too."

"But," he said eagerly, advancing toward her, "you are wronging me--you
are wronging yourself, cruelly."

"Stop," she said, stepping back, with her hands still locked behind
her. "Stay where you are. There! That's enough!" She drew herself
up and let her hands fall at her side. "Now, let us speak of Jim," she
said coldly.

Without seeming to hear her, he regarded her for the first time with
hopeless sadness.

"Why did you let my brother believe you were his rival with Cicely
Preston?" she asked impatiently.

"Because I could not undeceive him without telling him I hopelessly
loved his sister. You are proud, Miss Culpepper," he said, with the
first tinge of bitterness in his even voice. "Can you not understand
that others may be proud too?"

"No," she said bluntly